Focal areas of BIBB advisory services
Establishment and expansion of national infrastructures for research and development
The type of assistance that BIBB provides in connection with the development of VET systems and the level of success of BIBB's advisory services depend in part on the extent to which the institutions and stakeholders in partner countries are able to push forward with change and underpin it with targeted capacity-building measures.
Backed by its wide-ranging experience with the progressive development of VET structures, BIBB helps other countries particularly with the establishment and development of national vocational research and development institutes and with shaping efficient organisational and operational structures. These activities revolve primarily around increasing the importance of research and development in the preparation, support and implementation of policy decisions, fostering innovation in the VET field through high-quality research and development work, and contributing to the sustainability of the targeted changes and development policy measures. Consequently, BIBB helps institutions that regulate and oversee VET in the individual partner countries by making its technical expertise available to them in support of their efforts to develop a vocational training research infrastructure that will provide input for evidence-based policy guidance. These activities aim first and foremost at strengthening empirical VET research and gearing the methodologies and instruments used in this research to gathering data as necessary on important determinants along the interface between the education market and the labour market. Furthermore, research can make important contributions by evaluating pilot projects, in connection with cost-benefit analyses and in the establishment and development of functioning information and documentation systems in the respective countries.
Definitions
- Vocational competence comprises the dimensions technical competence, human competence and social competence.
- Vocational proficiency means having the vocational skills, knowledge and qualifications necessary to practise a skilled occupation.
Early identification of requirements and the development of vocational standards
Many countries say they have a growing need to bring the vocational training measures and programmes they have on offer more into line with the needs of their respective labour market. The lack of reliable instruments and information for conducting systematic analyses of the labour market and labour needs is further aggravated in many countries by the inability of the vast majority of enterprises to identify their skilled labour requirements on a timely basis. Information is also lacking on those fast-growing fields and industries vocational training programmes and schemes should be geared to in the future. As a consequence, partner countries have been reporting an increased need for advisory services in the area of training and qualification research. The instruments and methods that BIBB has developed for early identification purposes have been helpful to partner countries in their use of comparable methods for their own analyses and forecasts. The monitoring and evaluation of this process will generate information on how instruments for the early identification of qualification requirements can be adjusted to different underlying conditions and utilised for the respective country's particular requirements.
Many countries still do not have a uniform system of occupational standards that could serve as guideposts for vocational training programmes and be used as a basis for examinations and the certification of acquired skills and competences. For this reason, the development of national standardisation, examination and certification systems with the participation of all relevant stakeholders (including trade and industry in particular) is a key element in the VET reform efforts in many countries; the development of such systems ultimately also has the aim of establishing quality assurance and the international compatibility of national VET systems. BIBB has contributed its expertise in this field and pointed out ways to shape VET pathways in terms of curricula and certificates.
Ecology and sustainability
More and more importance is also being attached to dealing with ecological issues. The reason: The eco-friendliness of products and production processes is developing into an important locational factor.
However, linking vocational training to sustainable development is largely new territory in many developing, threshold and transition countries, and even many industrialised countries have just taken their first steps in this direction. BIBB particularly receives requests for concepts and practical examples for fostering occupational competence in sustainable management not only among skilled personnel but among trainees too. There is equally strong demand for practice-oriented training and instruction materials which give teachers
Professionalisation of VET personnel
Few of the countries requesting BIBB's advisory services have well-established structures for the systematic initial and continuing training of vocational school teachers. The induction training trainers receive in their respective company is usually informal and not particularly thought out. Deficits can be observed in their occupation-specific theoretical training and practical occupational experience as well as in their knowledge of educational theory and field-related didactics. Accordingly, teaching occupations usually have a low social status. The provision of initial and continuing training for instruction and training personnel is therefore also an important area of activity when building the institutional capacity of partner organisations. The concepts that BIBB has developed in the area of trainer instruction offer a broad foundation for planning programmes and training measures which provide for the systematic intermeshing of technical, practical, didactic and classroom exercises. These concepts can in some cases also be made available to other countries as online offerings. BIBB also offers a platform 0 www.foraus.de 0 where teachers and company trainers can share their experience. This platform can be also be set up in other countries for continuing training purposes. However, more offerings also have to be developed for education management personnel (education planners, school directors, training centre directors, curricula developers). Institutions that will implement these measures in the respective country also have to be developed and expanded. This constitutes a field for future action for VET cooperation and should be tackled on a more targeted basis in connection with existing networks.
